It was the morning of the first of Aerisus. Metello's coming-of-age ceremony would take place on the 14th bell, with all the other children born the same month as him. This was the biggest moment of change in his short life. Soon, he would be considered an adult, he would have to leave the orphanage, he would be allowed to buy weapons, and he would get his basic class. It was a lot for a fourteen-year-old budding adult.

To relax, he was sitting on a stone bench in front of the orphanage. The boy was not dressed for the ceremony yet but wore brown leather pants and a raw woolen shirt. It's not that his ceremony's clothing was so much different. His attire would mainly be the same in better quality.

Maria was at his side with a sad face. In the last year, they had grown quite closer. Metello could now truly consider her as his first friend. They would have even less time to see each other than during the last months of Metello's training, and it was an unhappy prospect for both of them.

Metello thought back to the past year, to all he had experienced and learned. After the ambush, the following months had been tiring, even if not as much as his first prayer marathon. He had been able to get used to Brorne training, which meant that it was a lot more tolerable fatigue-wise. He had learned to know him as a funny old man too. The [Shield bearer] just needed to get to know the person first.

It had been a stressful period too. Every cycle, Metello had had to change the path and the time he was on the streets between the House and the orphanage. It was necessary to avoid easy ambushes. He had to stay alert every second, sometimes crossing the line of paranoia. When he had the chance to find [Guards] going his way, he was following them.

Nevertheless, during the first month, he had discovered and avoided four possible ambushes. Since the first time, it had become sort of a habit of him to watch behind him regularly when he was walking in the streets. Even like that, it had not been an easy feat to notice the men following him before it had been too late. Thankfully, he had never seen one of the zealots again after the sixth ambush attempt.

On the bright side, all the efforts he had put in during these nine months had been rewarding.

By the end of Calor's month, Metello had managed to get the Prayer to Calor blessing. It had been easier than the first prayer to a god as he knew more about divine energy control and prayers processes. Then, he had gotten Prayer to Anima to Maria's despair, but knowing all the problems he had been having in town, she had let him do as he pleased, for once. But he had had no choice but to work to get the Prayer to Aeris right after that so as not to be found dead in his bed one morning, killed by an angry despotic little girl named Maria. After that, the orphan had taken some more time playing with the Prayer to Lux. He had been able to afford it as he hadn't been in a hurry to please someone or obtain more tools for direct use anymore. He had learned the Prayer to Aqua as her mentor advised him a bit later, and he had chosen to learn the Prayer to Vegeta too before losing patience and devoting himself fully to the Prayer to Lux.

In these months, Metello had been bestowed more than prayer blessings. All this game of cat and mouse with the zealots had got him to improve his Sight sense blessing, which was a passive blessing that helped people notice things you were seeking. It had been a nice surprise. It had happened during an ambush attempt when he noted many suspicious people here and there. It had allowed him to take another street and evade the trap unscathed.

Weapon-wise, Metello had meticulously practiced the rapier, and he was still enjoying it. The one-hour sessions were sometimes supplemented by general physical training in the mornings as he had had a lot of time in the House. He had gained the Rapier Handling blessing after five months, then had gotten the Spear Handling one in the four following months. His favorite among the two weapons was still the lighter and more flexible rapier he could wield with a wooden shield. The boy had had only half a month to practice more and spar a bit with the rapier, but he had learned a lot in these cycles. Also, his shield usage was a lot better, even if he hadn't gained the corresponding blessing yet.

Between all these stressful and tiring activities, Metello had had a lot of free time at the House. It had been a good excuse to discover the library and learn many useful things, and some less useful things like some basic rules of the noble's etiquette.

The boy had been more interested in monsters, history, kingdoms, and classes. Terry's expression "still-ass ignorant" had stuck in his head and he wanted to avoid being called something similar. After these months, he learned much about the Everlightened Lands and its two empires, its seven kingdoms, and its lost lands where some monster societies settled, primarily in the southern part of the land. These organized monsters were mainly boar-headed orcs, Canidae-headed gnolls, lizard-engendered kobolds, and mutated humans in the form of goblins and trolls. He had been shocked to learn that Nox-tainted humans existed and that they were the origin of the infamous little green-skinned and giant blue-skinned monsters.

Something important Brorne had briefly explained to him but that Mrs. Richardson had not yet taught him about at this time was the achievement to raise your class tier. The more he learned, the more Metello found that achievements were the most important keys to improving yourself through the system as it was through it that you were able to unlock or evolve basic classes or blessings.

Metello had been aware of classes tiers thanks to the stories he had read, but he hadn't known how it worked and how to change it. As the book he had found had been written by a [Scholar], the explanation had been far better.

There were five tiers of classes named basic, special, rare, epic, and mythical. In real life, people had basic, special, and sometimes rare classes while, in the books he read, they usually went hunting with mythical classes as the epic ones were for the wimps.

Metello has learned that for raising his [Acolyte] class, he needed to get twenty-five added levels on his god's blessings. That was why it was better to get most of the tier 0 blessings of the god you want to follow, as Brorne had said, or to follow your god's values as had said Mrs Richardson. Before fully understanding this, he had still been hesitating between Lux and Calor thanks to the Lux [Priest]. He had not been attracted to the idea of following the same god as this kind of man. But, when he had found the lists of tier 0 blessings for each god, the choice had been made definitive.

To become a [Lux Acolyte], it was better to get Hiding, Graphic arts, Sight Sense and Prayer to Lux he already had had, Rapier Handling and Spear Handling that he had already been practicing for, Light Resist, Undead Detection which would certainly be useful for someone like him, and finally Identify Art Quality which could be fun.

To become a [Calor Acolyte], it was advised to get Prayer to Calor he already had had and was fun, Hammer Handling and Axe Handling he had not the stats to use well, and Fire Crafting, Temperature Sense, Taste Sense, Relatives Care and Fire affinity, which he had neither worked for nor had an interest in. At least, he felt the last Calor's blessing, Identify Item, could have many uses. Calor's blessings were not appealing to him.

In the cycle he had learned all that he had made his choice: he would follow Lux.

While being so often in the House, Metello had had to meet many people. Among them had been a lot of monster hunters. Despite his muscular body, Terry was kind of smart too. He had been so right with the “still-ass ignoramus” expression.

The younger monster hunters who had yet to travel the world had been much more hostile than the more experienced ones. He was afraid that it would cause problems for him to find a group as the friendlier monster hunters had already completed squads, hunting in too many dangerous areas for him, and the other beginners didn't like black-haired people. He had expected this, but it was hurtful nonetheless.

Besides the unknown monster hunters, Metello had met Terry some more times before the one he had learned was a [Swordman] had gone on a hunt in the Little Orc Forest in the south.

He had gotten to know the House's [Bookkeeper] too. As Metello had spent much time at the library, he had met Lisbeth regularly and they had chatted sometimes, mostly about what Metello had read. Metello felt she knew everything as none of his questions had remained unanswered. [Scholars] were freakishly knowledgable.

By the end of those months, Metello had practiced [Butchery] a bit in the “dirty section” of the House. The orphan had gained a lot of understanding about how to dismantle monsters and their valuable parts. Unfortunately, he had not been granted the blessing yet. He had been able to familiarize himself with seeing and touching dead monsters, which had not been pleasant at all. He had been able to see lucrative magical mosses and mushrooms he would come across in the mines too and he had learned all he could about it.

It had been a busy year.

To cheer up the brooding Maria next to him and to relax a bit more himself, Metello played with his second best friend, Lucco, the light ball. At first, naming his light ball had been a dumb joke between him and Maria, but finally, they liked it that way. On her side, Maria called her wind ball Aeria.

Metello progressed a lot with his Prayer to Lux. He was proud that Lucco was now level 3. He was no longer limited to a dim, round white light ball. In his hand, the white sphere gained progressively a yellowish hue, which changed slowly to green, blue, violet, and finally white again. Then Metello made the white ball flatten herself to look like a thick floating pancake which started to “dance”, waving in the air regularly like a wide flat snake. After some time, the thick pancake started “headbanging” slowly, joining its upper and lower part before getting back to the roughly flat form and doing it again.

Metello still had a lot of work with Lucco as he could not change simultaneously its form and its color, make multicolored balls, or choose any shape he wanted yet. However, he enjoyed a lot playing with it like some hard-to-sculpt play-dough.

Meanwhile, Maria had taken a handful of dirt and fed it to Aeria, her Prayer of Aeris, and a little wind ball was gently blowing dust-up in a tornado shape. Then, she shaped the ball as long and thin as she could until she designed what she called a snake shape but what Metello viewed as a potato. As she wasn't controlling it too well yet, the dust snake waved himself randomly as if it was dancing in the air too. That had been Metello's inspiration for the headbanging pancake dance. The soon-to-be adult had yet to be able to shape it into a more complex form, but he had decided Lucco would be a bird as soon as possible to offer some dance show with the snake Aeria.

Maria had followed Metello's example and trained a lot these past months too. She had learned all the safe prayers to gods shortly after her friend-teacher and stuck to her [Aeris Acolyte] class choice she would make four years later. The young girl had even started training to aim for the [Priest] class like Metello. She already had gotten Smell Sense and Hearing Sense, and she was practicing every morning with [Rogues] who grew up in the orphanage. For the Sonic arts and Identify Music blessings, she managed to find a [Worker] woman near the orphanage who knew how to play the flute, and they met once every three cycles. To her regret, she had not been allowed to learn weapons yet. As she had a lot to do with her other blessings, she still accepted.

Maria broke her prayer and the silence at the same time, not in a much better mood. “You have to come to visit often to teach me new magic tricks.”

Metello chuckled. It was the tenth time she told him similar things. “Yes, don't worry, I'll come often between hunts, you zombie-brained.”

Not even minding the insult, she added. “And if you go hunt far away, you'll write Mrs Richardson.”

“Yes, and I'll write you too sometimes.”

The silence fell again between those two while Lucco was back in his ball form and was changing colors again.

He had been told he needed all the divine energy he could for the ceremony, so he said goodbye to Lucco after some more time and whispered one of the last Prayer of Status of his child's life.

Status : Metello Level : 0 Ether : 0 Class : None (none) Stamina 32/32 2/h (regeneration) Divine energy 40,2/44 2,6/h (regeneration) Statistics Base Effective Class bonus Strength Upper 7,8 (↑1.1) 7,8 0% Lower 8 (↑1.2) 8 0% Agility Body 8,9 (↑0.8) 8,9 0% Hand 10,5 (↑0.5) 10,7 0% Resilience Body 8,1 (↑1.1) 8,1 0% Mind 11 (↑1.0) 11 0% Mind Intelligence 8,7 (↑0.4) 8,7 0% Imagination 12,7 (↑0.2) 12,7 0% Faith Power 10,5 (↑1.0) 10,7 0% Control 11,4 (↑1.6) 11,6 0% Perception Sense 10,1 (↑0.4) 10,2 0% Memory 10,6 (↑0.1) 10,6 0% Social Comprehension 8,7 (↑0.4) 8,7 0% Expression 8,5 (↑0.4) 8,5 0% Blessings Bestower tier level Petrus Resting 1 3 passive Aqua Cleaning 1 1 passive Prayer to Aqua 1 1 (↑NEW) active Aeris Prayer to Aeris 1 1 (↑NEW) active Calor Prayer to Calor 1 1 (↑NEW) active Lux Hiding 1 2 passive Graphic arts 1 2 (↑1) passive Sight sense 1 2 (↑1) passive Prayer to Lux 1 3 (↑2) active Rapier Handling 1 1 (↑NEW) passive Spear Handling 1 1 (↑NEW) passive Light Resist 1 1 (↑NEW) passive Fulgur Prayer of Thanks 1 2 (↑1) active/passive Vegeta Prayer to Vegeta 1 1 (↑NEW) active Anima Prayer to Anima 1 1 (↑NEW) active Menta Reading 1 4 passive Counting 1 3 passive Writing 1 1 (↑NEW) passive Focus 1 1 (↑NEW) passive Nihil Prayer of Status 1 2 active

It summed up well his year of growth. His blessing list gained a lot in length. Even if a part was due to his natural growth, his statistics made a huge leap too which reflected the kid's work. He had come from globally medium-low physical statistics to medium-high for his age thanks to Brorne. Also, he knew that besides his medium Mind Intelligence, he had pretty high Mind and Faith statistics now. He was much pleased with what he saw. Only his low Social Comprehension statistic was a bit cringe now.

He closed his status and stood up with Maria. It was past 11 o'clock. He had to make sure he had packed all he needed before lunch. He would not leave before the next cycle but the afternoon would be really busy.